


fas est ab hoste doceri

by Lecrit



Series: alea iacta est [2]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: AND I LOVE THEM FOR IT, Con Artists, Enemies to Something, Kinda, M/M, Sexual Tension, True love right there, Will I ever learn how to tag?, alec is a bit of an asshole, all signs point to no, magnus is also a bit of an asshole, that's all you need to know tbvh, they're still slightly assholes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2020-05-01
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:40:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23950198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lecrit/pseuds/Lecrit
Summary: Alec finds Magnus Bane in Las Vegas.
Relationships: Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood
Series: alea iacta est [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1673011
Comments: 89
Kudos: 405





	fas est ab hoste doceri

**Author's Note:**

> let's never talk again about the utter chaos that are those tags. or just this fic overall.
> 
> but hey, please use #lecrit if you're live-tweeting :)

Mal refuses to leave his mind. Alec has his eyes etched into his brain, their peculiar shade of brown shining with gold under the lights, their devilishly tempting glimmer. He sees them when he shuts his eyes, still feels the ghost of his skin at the tips of his fingers.

But even more so, he still hears the soft curl of his voice as he muttered Alec’s given name against his lips, he can feel his smirk ghosting against his skin.

And once the adrenaline settles down, the thrill of the game gives way to a cold anger that sits on his chest until Alec’s hampering breathing feels like fire.

It is still driving his every move when he makes it to the Park Hyatt hotel and heads directly to the front desk. There is a new face there. It’s a petite woman with pasty skin and elegantly-framed glasses that make Alec wonder whether she actually needs them to see or if they are some sort of fashion statement.

He asks for his key card, unable to force himself to wear the charming smile that has become second skin to him, the one that accentuates his dimples and the perfect alignment of his teeth. He is too distracted for that, and although he remains polite, Alec doesn’t have the energy for more than the required manners. He would usually make it last longer, to make sure he has her wrapped around his finger for when he will undoubtedly need to negotiate some time in the spa without it being added to his bill, but he doesn’t have the mind for more than believable and polite enough to make sure he can expend on it further if he needs to later. His mind is too preoccupied to plan anything more complex than that.

Still, her cheeks are dusted with pink, and she is quite obviously gawking at him. Alec suppresses the urge to pinch his lips in disappointment. Everyone is too easy to fool, these days.

Including him, apparently.

Today, he is Ethan Miller.

He needs to get rid of everything that ever made him Oliver Smith, and that does nothing to placate his anger. Creating a fake identity is already a feat in itself, but dismantling one is even harder. But Oliver Smith is compromised, and although Alec is certain this isn’t the only of his many identities Mal managed to put his perfectly manicured hands on, he doesn’t know how far his worries must go.

He hasn’t been Ethan Miller in years, though, so it seemed like the safest bet.

Ethan Miller likes peppermint tea and reads the newspaper every morning at eight like clockwork. He doesn’t really work, living off his family’s trust fund, but fancies himself an expert in just about everything. Ethan loves to cook and collects ancient weapons that he has no idea how to use. Ethan is, if Alec were to say, unbearable.

And yet Ethan Miller was the one who turned Alec’s games into a lucrative business when he first started doing this.

Ethan Miller loves gambling, too, and he rarely loses.

The thought alone sends a new wave of pure rage coursing through Alec’s veins, and he grits his teeth, leaning his elbows on the counter as he swallows back a sigh of impatience. His gaze falls naturally on the light bruises on his left wrist. The right one is mostly unscathed, but the handcuffs have left a mark on his skin, sketching a faint line as if to remind him of what a fool he has been and the mistakes he has made. He wishes he could gauge them enough to make sure he can never be tracked so easily again.

He couldn’t sleep the night before, even hours after Mal had gone, which isn’t all that surprising. The painful pressure on his ribs tells him that he won’t be able to properly rest until he finds him and twists the odds of the game in his favor again.

That’s why he spent the night hunched over his laptop, trying to find what he could on him, after calling the one person more proficient than himself when it comes to finding the real owner of the phone number on the card he nicked from Mal’s wallet. Alec is a great researcher, can dig a piece of information out of the slightest hint of treachery hidden beyond layers of money and grandeur, but this kind of research isn’t his forte. It’s Isabelle’s.

And from what he has gathered so far, there is nothing.

Ethan Miller may be a fragment of the past, but Malcolm Black is a ghost.

Not that Alec is particularly surprised about it. He knew from the moment the door closed behind him, leaving him stranded in a deserted but luxurious hotel room, tied to his own bed, that although many Malcolm Blacks certainly existed, this man did only in a short window of time.

There was nothing about Malcolm Black that matched the face Alec knows will be engraved into his mind for the next few weeks. Still, no matter how difficult it may be, Alec knows he will find him eventually. He is too stubborn to let it be otherwise. Mal exhibited cleverness and intelligence, but he was more bold than deceptive, more overt than sly and restrained.

This is a fault Alec is guilty of too, and perhaps the key to helping him get back to Mal: after a while, they start liking it, the attention, the creation of a forgery so believable it can fool even the most skeptical. It’s the beauty of the game, and what makes it thrilling and so dangerously addictive.

Alec had made a living out of it, and he has yet to find a ghost that didn’t succumb to the hunt, a player that didn’t surrender in the end and accepted defeat. He’s been operating on the wrong side of the law for years, but before yesterday he had never met anyone who could cheat him. And Alec doesn’t know whether he is angrier about being conned at all, or about the way it was done.

It drives him crazy, to think that the one person who managed to deceive him in what feels like a lifetime of fraud and lies and carefully constructed charades slipped through his fingers with feline grace and a devilish smirk on his face.

“Mr. Miller?”

Alec blinks out of his thoughts and back at the receptionist, who is wearing a bashful smile as she hands over the key card, perhaps for longer than Alec realized. He smiles back, grabs the key and picks up his luggage. She moves to help him, but Alec shakes his head.

“I’ve got it, thank you.”

The suite is on the last floor, and Alec takes the elevator, forcing himself not to think of his very different elevator trip the night before, of fingers curling around his tie and pulling him forward, of the taste of Earl Grey and martini lingering on parted lips, of fingers sliding into his hair and gripping just enough to be a warning Alec was unable to decipher.

He leans his head against the wall of the elevator and closes his eyes. An arrogant, handsome face flashes behind his lids, the curve of a mouth pulled into a smirk, the glimmer of amber eyes shining with mischief, the gold and silver shimmering over golden skin.

Alec had seen the gold ring on Mal’s fingers and the idea of stealing it had crossed his mind. It would be easy: surely Mal would take it off when they were in the deep of their night together. But he had pushed the thought away, finding something more interesting than the prospect of easy money in Mal’s face, in his enthralling wit and provocative glances.

A dizzying array of emotions clouds his mind, of hate, of impatience, of frustration, swelling in his chest until it sits there, hindering his breathing. If he had a habit of acting on impulse rather than smothering overthought, he would have run after Mal, driven by anger, shame, and a tiny hint of excitement that he would rather forget all about.

He can step into Mal’s shoes. He can pretend to be Malcolm Black, to ooze charm with a smile and have strangers eating out of his hand. It’s what he has been doing for years, and although Mal’s trickery might have put a dent on his ego, it is up to him to rectify that for the record.

As he steps inside the hotel room and falls head first onto the bed, body ridden with exhaustion, Alec makes himself a promise.

Ghost or not, Malcolm Black or not, he will find him. 

.

“Why would he go through all that trouble just for a watch?”

Alec’s brows furrow as he glances back at Isabelle, who is lying on his hotel bed with her arms spread out, her long dark hair forming a halo around her head.

“He said he was working for Aldertree,” Alec mumbles, pouring himself a glass of whiskey from the minibar. “I’m guessing it had more value than I anticipated.”

It had been foolish of him to even take the watch in the first place. It was just that as he was slowly setting up the hoax, his pawns closing in on his unsuspecting target, he had noticed how deeply the man seemed to care for his watch, more even than he cared for most people or living things. Aldertree didn’t care for much, morals least of all. The fact that this man is still allowed to work in health facilities is the biggest scam Alec has ever seen, and he is somewhat of a connoisseur on the matter. Alec had been too furious at him not to feel an urge to add insult to injury, and taking the watch had been a nice bonus, albeit not quite enough to alleviate his inner resentment.

Isabelle looks at him in silence for a moment, and she must see what is going on inside his head, like she often does. She doesn’t mention it, though. She never does. She always speaks truthfully to him, but never pushes. She takes care of him in invisible ways, with sweet smiles and heedful ears. She is one of the few people who see him, the _real_ him, the one Alec fears he will one day lose sight of under a mountain of fabricated identities that don’t manage to quite conceal the array of smothering thoughts that sometimes cloud his mind. She sees him, all of him, and she cares all the same. Alec wishes he could live up to this idealized image she seems to have of the goodness of his heart.

In that moment, she must see something else too, however, something he doesn’t mean to let show on his features, because her lips pull into a smirk.

“And how did you say he got it off of you again?” she asks, but the glimmer in her gaze has him swallowing back a groan. Clearly, she didn’t buy his offhanded comment about being distracted. If Alec were an absent-minded person, they would both be either dead or in jail by now.

“I told you,” he says nonetheless, gulping down half of his glass. “I was distracted.”

Isabelle rolls on her stomach, cupping her face between her hands as she looks at him. “Did this Malcolm Black happen to be hot by any chance? And into you?” she asks. “Unless you didn’t get a chance to get to that part.”

“Oh my God, Isabelle!” Alec grunts, cheeks flaming.

He grabs a pillow from the couch to throw it at her face before sinking into the cushions. Her laughter ripples across the room, loud and taunting. His head is throbbing with a headache, the lack of sleep having caught up to him the second she walked into his hotel room and he had to tell her what had happened. He kept it vague, giving away just the information she absolutely needed to know for them to plan their next move, but it was foolish of him to underestimate his sister’s ability to read him –and even more so her intelligence.

She is the most intelligent person he knows, after all.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” she mutters.

Alec doesn’t reply, which is more of a confirmation than he cares to admit. His grip on his glass tightens, and he brushes a finger against the skin of his wrist and the small bruise that has formed there.

“Did you manage to trace the number?” he asks, trying not to sound too eager to change the subject.

He knows that he doesn’t fool her anymore then, but she agrees to let it go, for now. They will have to talk about it eventually, if only to figure out how Mal managed to find him. They’re chameleons, he and Isabelle. They wear a dozen names but seldom their own. They change their colors and adapt to survive, and although they are perfectly capable of catching their audience’s attention and bend them to their will, they are also experts at hiding in the shadows.

They are each other’s only liability. If someone finds Alec, they find Isabelle too, which is perhaps why the thrill of the game Mal has started is still smothered in Alec’s mind by a blinding anger. He can deal with the consequences if he needs to. The thought might be causing cool dread to pool in his stomach, but he can even go back to jail if it spares her from this fate. But he’ll be damned if he lets anything happen to Isabelle because of his own carelessness. His conscience already lays heavily on his shoulders daily, for what he did, for what he has let himself become, but he will never forgive himself if Isabelle suffers even the slightest consequence of his own arrogance.

If anything, perhaps he should thank Mal for teaching him a valuable lesson. Alec is not untouchable. He is not invincible. 

And if his safety doesn’t matter that much, Isabelle’s is capital.

She isn’t jaded by the world yet. She’s still kind and uncannily good, even when they are in the midst of a game. She’s free and strong and the only one who loves Alec even when he feels like the person who could cause her not to be.

She pulls him out of his thoughts by rolling out of the bed, as ungracefully as Alec has ever seen her, and saunters to the bag she brought along. She pulls out a neatly folded stack of papers and opens them, reading out loud.

“Azazel White,” she says, voice clipped into neutrality. “He’s a corporate lawyer for Edom Enterprise.”

“Corporate lawyer?” Alec echoes, skeptical. “That doesn’t sound like him.”

Isabelle arcs an eyebrow at him, and Alec knows he should have kept his mouth shut before she replies, “Didn’t get the feeling he was going to make you sign a confidential agreement while you had your tongue down his throat?”

Her tone is teasing, her dark eyes glimmering with mischief and Alec pulls a face, groaning. 

“Izzy!”

Isabelle chuckles, and hands over her file. “That’s all I got from the phone number.”

Alec grabs it and opens it, his brows furrowing. “That’s not him. But I suppose that would’ve been weird of him to write down his own phone number.”

Isabelle flops down on the bed again, shrugging. “Unless he’s changing it frequently,” she points out. “But if that’s not the guy, then who is this? And why did he have his number written down?”

Alec opens his laptop, gulps down the last of his whiskey, and logs in.

“Time to find out.”

.

Azazel White is attending a congress on corporate law in San Francisco the following week.

Alec knows, because on the third day after his unfortunate encounter with Malcolm Black, Isabelle _accidentally_ bumped into Azazel White in his usual coffee shop and _accidentally_ used the opportunity to pluck his phone out of his pocket and hand it to Alec who was just _coincidentally_ walking by behind her. Alec locked himself in the nearest bathroom and scrolled through the man’s emails. He didn’t have to go very far to find two things of interest: an email from a hotel confirming his booking, and another from a Milan Butler, who was inviting him for a drink the night before the first day of congress, to talk in more details about a cryptic deal. Alec took a picture of the email with his own phone and returned it before Azazel noticed it was gone, too distracted by Isabelle’s alluring smile and other charms to even pay attention to his surroundings.

Alec isn’t known to follow his instincts, although Isabelle tells him differently. His intuition is often good, because he is quick to understand how people operate, but that doesn’t mean he acts on it. Intuitions arise from feelings and feelings are too personal, too impassioned for their line of work. Isabelle argues that it is exactly the opposite, that emotions are exactly what the game relies on, but just because Alec is good at using their own feelings to make people trust him doesn’t mean he extends the same kindness to himself.

Alec likes things overly thought-out, calculated and meticulously planned.

Trusting your instincts, at the end of the day, is the ultimate act of trusting yourself. And Alec is far too smart to do that.

Still, it is his intuition that tells him that Milan Butler doesn’t have in common with Malcolm Black solely their initials. And although Alec tries to dissuade himself from it, from believing what a voice in a corner of his mind screams at him at the top of its lungs, it is eventually Isabelle who manages to convince him that his suspicions could very well be founded.

So he flies to San Francisco on a Monday.

In San Francisco, Alec is Daniel Klein.

Daniel Klein is passionate about two things: corporate law and making money. He is freshly divorced, likes to brag about his knowledge of old movies and spends his money collecting art he does not understand.

Daniel Klein is usually the perfect culprit to cheat men like himself, who evolve in boy clubs and only spend money when it’s recommended by their peers. Azazel White is most definitely one of those.

Alec first spots him when he arrives at the hotel.

He walks to the counter, and looks down at the badge on the receptionist’s chest, glancing back up almost immediately. “Hi, Lindsay. Daniel Klein. My company booked a room for me.” He pauses, gives her the kind of curt smile Daniel Klein thinks makes him look tough and respectable. “Could you get me my key card, please?”

She nods quickly, focusing on her computer, and Alec takes the opportunity to gaze around the lobby. Azazel walks in right then. He’s decidedly better looking than he was in the pictures Isabelle found online, in a tall, dark and douchebag sort of way. He has sharp cheekbones but sharper eyes, something in them cold and sinister that would make a shiver run down Alec’s spine were he of a more sensitive constitution.

He doesn’t walk like he owns the place. He walks like the place was built to comply to his will, but it still wasn’t enough.

He looks like a certified asshole, and Alec knows a thing or two about it, because Daniel Klein is definitely one, and he isn’t certain he himself doesn’t qualify for the title.

Alec turns back to the receptionist, gives her a skillfully staged grin and grabs the key card she is handing to him. “Thanks.”

He manages to slither in the otherwise empty elevator right after Azazel, who doesn’t show any sign of acknowledging his presence. Instead, he takes a look at his watch and purses his lips.

Azazel has an appointment at six o’clock. Alec knows, because he does too.

.

There is a bit of irony in the fact that the appointment takes place in the hotel bar, Alec can recognize that much.

This one is a lot different from the one where Alec met Mal, but there is a common quality to all hotel bars. They are populated by either lost souls or potential targets.

The bar is twenty feet of polished beechwood staffed by three bartenders. Behind them rise hundreds of glasses and bottles and the prospect of a night of debauchery that the corporate lawyers staying here for the congress are inherently looking for.

Azazel is already sitting at the bar when Alec walks in. He orders a drink –dirty martini, two olives, just for the humor of it. Azazel’s eyes rise to him and he lifts an eyebrow in Alec’s direction.

Alec smiles at him in benevolent greeting. “You here for the congress?”

Azazel’s dubiousness doesn’t ebb away, but he nods, pursing his lips. His eyes rake over Alec, taking in his midnight blue suit, assessing. His grip on his cellphone is tight, and his gaze keeps fluttering to the entrance.

Alec holds out a hand, smiling still. “Daniel Klein, Idris Inc.”

Were he playing another role but this one, Alec would laugh at the ridicule of it, using his father’s company to do exactly what his father does but with a million dollar company to hide behind –lie, cheat, scam.

The name of the company seems to catch Azazel’s attention because he reaches out and takes the outstretched hand, although his lips stay pulled into a tight line.

“Azazel White,” he says, but doesn’t offer his company in exchange.

Alec isn’t really all that bothered, so long as Azazel doesn’t notice the microscopic chip he plants against the crown of his watch. Alec’s drink is deposited on the counter in front of him and he grabs it and tips it in Azazel’s direction.

“Have a good one.”

Azazel hums in acknowledgment, barely an effort to it, and Alec takes his drink as he moves to the back of the bar, hidden by the shadows. The booth he settles in is ideal, barely lit and separated from the others with wooden bars. He sits with his back to the bar, carefully positioned so that just the back of his head can be seen from Azazel’s spot at the bar. If Milan Butler is indeed Malcolm Black, then he needs to be invisible.

As tempting as he can be, Azazel isn’t a target; he’s but a means to an end.

Even with his back to the entrance and the shadows he is basking in, Alec knows the moment he comes in.

Even from the corner of his eyes, with an obstructed view, Alec would recognize him anywhere. Malcolm or Milan or whatever name he is called when he doesn’t forget himself the one he was born with, is one of those gorgeous rarities the world has to offer. His existence alone commandeers attention, and Alec is at least comforted by the fact that he wasn’t a singular, episodic victim of his charms, not when the whole room seems to shift to accommodate his presence. Gazes turn to him, intrigued if not already bewitched. Alec pities the poor souls.

Mal’s eyes are free of makeup but still deep and steady as he walks to the bar, making a beeline for Azazel, ignoring all the glances he attracts with the ease of someone who has been dodging them all his life.

Alec turns fully, and discreetly adjusts the receptor in his ear.

“Azazel, what a pleasure,” Mal says. His voice is rich and deeper than Alec remembers, thick with a sense of authority and arrogance that feels right tonight but would have felt wrong a week ago.

“Butler.” His tone is even colder than it was when he was addressing Alec, and he is starting to think the guy might just not be all that aware of proper social etiquette. There is something else, however, an edge of panic Alec doesn’t quite comprehend.

Alec pretends to be absently gazing at the intense game of pool two men are engaged in at the back of the bar to take a quick peripheral look at the scene. Mal doesn’t seem very bothered by Azazel’s lack of regard for decorum. He’s leaning back against the bar, casual and completely at ease. He’s parading, playing nonchalance for the interested eyes lingering on him.

Alec forces himself to look away. He’s been there already, and although the bruises on his wrist have disappeared, the one on his ego is still raging enough for him to know better than to let his eyes cling to Mal’s handsome profile for longer than strictly necessary. 

Mal’s eyes start to skim over the room, and Alec quickly turns away, burying himself deeper in the shadows. He can’t see his target at all now, but it’s a calculated risk, and exactly the point of planting a mic.

“Did you bring it?” Azazel asks, and there’s a shift that tells Alec Mal turned back to him.

“Of course I did.”

“Is it the only copy?”

“Yes.”

Mal’s voice is clipped into a stern and neutral tone, nothing left of the warm velvet that had brushed over Alec just a week ago.

Azazel heaves out a small sigh that can only be relief. “I’ve got what you asked.”

It is incredibly apparent that whatever deal Milan Butler was mentioning in his email is clearly more blackmail than it ever was business. Although Alec supposes it is a certain form of business, especially for people like them.

He has learned to live his life in shades of grey, has long abandoned the pretence of defining what black and white stand for. Alec is a con artist, and he has stopped questioning whether he is a good person that does bad things, or if it is the other way around. Bad is in the eye of the beholder.

And from what he has read about Azazel White in the past few days before he flew off to San Francisco, Alec can’t say he feels too poorly for the man if he is indeed being blackmailed. He had to dig deep to find it, but one of the articles he read was a long investigation on how Azazel had deployed all of his lawyer arsenal to stifle the case of how his boss, billionaire and entrepreneur extraordinaire Asmodeus Effendi, had allegedly killed his mistress. Further research had also shown that the journalist who wrote it, a certain Ragnor Fell from London, had coincidentally been fired from his long-standing job just a week later.

Alec has no doubt Azazel had a hand in that, too, and he won’t sleep poorly at night knowing he let this man get blackmailed.

But this isn’t why he is here. He’s here for Mal. For his bruised ego. For Isabelle’s safety. To set things right.

There is more shuffle in the mic, and Alec doesn’t have to look back to know an exchange is being made.

Then Azazel clears his throat. “I hope you’ve got your ass covered, Butler.”

The threat is barely veiled, hissed between gritted teeth, with an air of danger that is no pretence, half a word away from being a promise.

“Don’t worry about me, dear,” he says, as heady and sparkling as the fine champagne being served at the bar. This is much more like the man Alec met a week ago, charmingly self-assured, hotheaded but too confident for it to feel like a liability. “My ass is doing _fantastic_.”

It almost makes him smile, but Alec catches himself before the amusement can reach the corner of his lips.

Azazel makes a noise of disgust, and Alec doesn’t hear what follows. He tilts his head slightly, and peers between the wooden bars of the booth to get a glimpse of the situation. Mal is leaning forward, whispering something in Azazel’s ear, and his fingers are curled around Azazel’s wrist to hold him in place. Alec remembers these fingers elegantly curled around a glass, enticing, and then around his wrists, pinning him down, vowing for a night of passion that never occurred. 

When Mal pulls back, letting go of Azazel’s wrist, there is the same smirk on his features. It’s devilish and taunting, unapologetic and defiant, and something coils in Alec’s stomach that he doesn’t know whether to identify as anger for the last time he saw that same smile, or thrill for very much the same reasons.

There’s a quiet scratch against the mic as Azazel pulls his hand off, and Mal turns to the bartender, fingers dancing in the air in a graceful flourish. Alec turns his back to them again, and takes a long gulp of his martini.

“Hi, darling,” Mal tells her. “I’ll have a Negroni, please.”

Alec goes very still, and although his first instinct is to turn around to see if Mal is glancing his way, if he has discovered him, he doesn’t. It takes everything in him to keep his breathing and his body under control, but when Alec reaches out to grab his drink, his fingers are steady.

There is a shuffle in the mic again, some interference followed by a loud screech that makes him wince, and then nothing. He feels hesitation in his heartbeats, perpetual motion in his mind. There, he allows himself to play his next moves, over and over again until he has memorized all possible options and how to come out triumphant of them all.

He feels a shadow approaching him, and Alec braces himself. He doesn’t startle when the bartender lays a drink in front of him, a kind smile softening her features.

“From the gentleman at the bar,” she says, and all doubts and plots for action vanish from Alec’s mind, all guise of still remaining undetected washed away.

He swirls around, but the seats where Mal and Azazel were sitting just a moment ago are empty.

The bartender frowns when she follows his gaze. “Maybe he had to run.”

Alec snorts, because she can’t possibly know how accurate she is. He thanks her graciously, somehow managing not to sound like he is choking on the words, and turns back to his drink. There is a small napkin beneath the glass, and right there, tucked between the sheets, a folded piece of paper.

Alec waits until the bartender has walked away before he plucks one of his gloves out of his pocket, putting it on before he picks it up and unfolds it. The mic immediately falls on the table with a dull thud, meticulously torn apart.

 _I thought you didn’t hold grudges, Alexander?_ the note reads. Mal’s penmanship is, unsurprisingly, all elegant curves and calculated finesse. _As fun as this has been, I promise there is nothing for you to chase here, darling. You should stop now before you embarrass yourself completely._

The words are followed by a small, taunting heart.

Alec’s surprise manages to tear a laugh out of his chest. It slips out without him being able to do much about it, and is immediately followed by his jaw flexing in irritation. He exhales sharply through his nose, shaking his head, and takes his phone out before he can do something incredibly stupid, like run after Mal and either punch him in his perfect teeth or kiss him senseless. Both options seem to weigh equally on the balance right now.

Jace picks up on the first ring.

“I hate when you call me on the burner phone,” he says, mouth very clearly full of whatever junk food he has at close proximity. “I know you’re gonna ask me something illegal, and I’m gonna want to say no.”

“I have some fingerprints I need you to run,” Alec replies, promptly ignoring his brother’s dramatics.

Jace only gives a loud groan in answer.

Alec only half listens to his protest, knowing by now exactly what Jace will have to say, but even more so that he will say yes in the end.

He looks down at the note in his hand, memorizing the graceful handwriting, the way Mal puts emphasis on descendant letters and an unexpected tilt to ascendant ones. More than the words themselves, the penmanship itself seems to be taunting Alec. It brushes across the paper the way Mal’s fingers brushed against his burning skin.

Alec has played the game his whole life, and he doesn’t think he ever met a player as skilled and challenging as this man with no name, these amber eyes etched into his mind, keeping him awake at night.

It’s a game of cat and mouse, and Alec isn’t sure which one he is supposed to be.

.

Alec finds Magnus Bane in Las Vegas.

It’s half past two in the morning and Magnus Bane looks like a vision, bathed under the bright lights of the casino. There are two empty whiskey glasses in front of him, and the men around the table all look like they are close to passing out. Magnus leans forward on his elbows, his eyes focused on his cards and promptly ignoring the gazes around him.

Alec slides a coin in the one-armed bandit he’s been occupying for the better part of an hour, but his gaze never leaves Magnus, studying the various shifts on his face that could give away his hand.

The pile of chips in front of Magnus is ridiculously tall by now, and there is a sense of defeat on his opponents’ faces, as if they are just waiting for Magnus to deliver the final blow so they can go wallow in their defeat in the next room. But Alec is starting to understand that Magnus doesn’t play the game to win. He plays for the thrill of it, and to measure his audience’s resilience, to gauge their utility as a pawn on a board they can’t even surmise.

Magnus Bane plays for the crown.

Alec hates casinos, and he hates gambling. He hates the fever, the memories of his father coming home drunk and complaining about losing money as if he didn’t have plenty more of it where it came from. He hates that this industry dares to call it gaming, as if they can wager on people’s lives and make a sport out of it. He hates the misery that wreathes through these places of debauchery and lost causes. He hates those dreams they sell that anyone can be an underdog, so long as they are willing to watch the fallen hopes of others piling up around them.

He hates that even in this wretched place, Magnus Bane still looks like the only clear, steady front in a sea of blurred and weary faces. He hates that his beauty doesn’t seem to be affected by the dissoluteness of the world around him.

One after the other, his opponents fold, and Magnus collects his earnings with a perpetual smirk.

His target for the night isn’t sitting at this table. Alec knows, because even though it is barely perceptible, his eyes keep drifting subconsciously to the real, potential victim of his charms and wit.

The man is wearing arrogance the way Magnus wears silver and gold, with natural ease. His dark eyes are focused on the craps table, his dark brows furrowed as if he could influence the turn of the dice if he stares hard enough. His jet-black hair is pulled back into a strict queue, and the goatee framing his mouth only adds to the air of superiority he exudes.

He looks like a perfect victim; arrogant people seldom suspect they are being tricked because they are too deeply convinced no one could dupe them. It’s risible, really, because they are often the easiest targets, the ones who demand the least amount of work.

Alec has two options.

He can go to Magnus directly, demand the answers to his many questions and retribution for the watch and the bruise on his ego.

Or he can play.

And, well, Alec hates gambling, but he likes winning.

He picks up his glass and his chips, and wedges through the throng of people to get to the craps table with the same confidence a man headed to the finishing line with no real competition would carry.

He stops to stand right next to Magnus’ target, and Alec can feel Magnus’ eyes burning through the back of his head, the nape of his neck tingling at the attention.

Alec leans his palms on the padded rail of the table, taking a look at the players. Magnus’ pawn is already looking back at him when their eyes meet, dark eyes raking over him unabashedly. Alec almost snorts at how easy it all is. 

The woman wearing the casino’s uniform gives him a polite smile when Alec’s gaze shifts to settle on her.

“In, sir?” she asks.

Alec nods and places his bet, drawing his shoulders back. 

She pushes two traditional dice to him, and Alec grabs them, turning to the man at his side to flash him a lopsided grin. “Wish me luck?”

Surprise crosses his features, but it is quickly replaced by an air of absolute satisfaction, as if he expected no less than to be rightfully acknowledged. Still, he gives Alec a wide, toothy smile. “Good luck.”

Alec tosses the dice, and the patrons around the table watch with bated breath as they roll.

Six and five.

The table erupts into a ripple of cheers and applause, and Magnus’ target pats Alec’s shoulder in victory.

Alec turns to him, offering a hand. “I’m Oliver.”

“Lorenzo Rey,” he says, shaking Alec’s hand with a grin. “Are you always so lucky, Oliver?”

Before Alec can reply, a feathery touch brushes over the small of his back before resting there, between his jacket and his shirt. Alec turns and Magnus is right there, hand warm and ominous against his body.

Alec smiles at him, his eyes spelling words only Magnus will be able to read –how’s that for embarrassing myself?– and leans in to press a kiss to Magnus’ cheek.

Because he can, because he has finally twisted the odds in his favor and also –Jace would say mostly– because he is a little bit of an asshole.

“Still on a winning streak, babe?” he asks.

Magnus’ fingers slither across his back and tighten on his hip, menacing. None of it shows on his features, and if Alec wasn’t distinctly aware of the game they are and have been playing, he would almost believe there could be any truth to the adoration reflected back at him.

Magnus shrugs, and Alec would have missed the tension woven through the line of his broad shoulders if he wasn’t so close. “Not anymore, I’m afraid,” he says.

Alec chuckles, and barely has to stage it. “You know how you get,” he retorts, teasing. “You get too confident and you end up underestimating your opponents.”

The sharp line of Magnus’ jaw flexes in irritation. “How about you?” he says, tipping his chin toward the table.

The croupier clears her throat and Alec picks up the dice, giving her an apologetic smile before turning back to Magnus. “I’m doing pretty good.” He places his bet and sends Magnus a wink, holding his hand up between them. “Blow me?”

Magnus gives him a deeply unimpressed glare, but the corner of his lips twitch with the beginning of a smirk as he leans in and gently blows on Alec’s open palm.

He tosses the dice.

Alec barely pays attention to the numbers they land on, because Magnus takes the opportunity of the small crowd cheering around the table to lean forward, lips brushing against Alec’s ear.

“You shouldn’t play when you don’t know the rules, pretty boy.”

It’s a threat, barely veiled, and Alec swats it away, eyes focused on the table.

“And you shouldn’t have fucked me over,” he replies, a whisper Magnus only is meant to hear. “Yet here we are.”

He doesn’t have the patience to play tonight. He doesn’t want shrewd metaphors and clever pitches.

One of the lessons Alec had learned throughout his years of cons and schemes is that an experience is always far more meaningful than an elevator pitch. If he lets his targets think they’re winning, they lower their guard, and that’s when they go in for the grande finale. They feed them the illusion of money flowing their way just so they can fill their pockets more. And what he wants is for Magnus to experience the worry lurching in his stomach, the frustration building in his gut, the defeat weighing on his shoulders.

He wants Alec’s triumphant grin to keep him awake at night the way his taunting smirk has been reflecting back on the ceiling of Alec’s every hotel room in the dead of the night.

“From what I recall, we never actually got to the fucking part of things,” Magnus murmurs, playing the role of the doting lover with unsurprising ease. Magnus is a good actor, but the anger belied in his tone –the one only Alec can hear– is authentic.

Alec hums, a smile curving on his lips. “That’s funny,” he says, tone flat. He turns to Lorenzo, who is counting his winnings meticulously. “Funny you’re asking me about good luck. He keeps pestering me to tell him what my secret is,” he croons in Oliver’s voice, purposely obnoxious as he wraps an arm over Magnus’ shoulders, thumb idly following the patterns embroidered on his shirt. “Doesn’t believe me when I say he’s my lucky charm.”

Lorenzo hums, the spark of interest that was there earlier faded from his features.

“That’s because we both know that’s a lie, darling,” Magnus whispers, just low enough to sound like he is addressing Alec but to reach Lorenzo’s ears too.

Alec almost snorts. If he hadn’t travelled to Las Vegas for the sole purpose of getting back at Magnus for the Malcolm Black debacle, he supposes they could make a decent team.

Men are too easily hooked by greed, Alec thinks as Lorenzo perks up again, leaning toward them in a barely perceptible movement. Arrogant men most of all.

“People might think we’re cheating, babe,” Alec says, playfully chastising. “You don’t want people to believe you’re a crook now, do you?”

Magnus’ eyes widen slightly, and his grip on Alec’s waist tightens, almost painful, enough so that Alec wonders whether his skin will bruise. His stomach twists with a certain sense of satisfaction, one he knows Magnus can easily read on his features.

“Don’t fuck this up for me, Alexander,” he hisses quietly, lips brushing lightly against the bridge of his ear. “This is bigger than your ego. I _need_ him.”

There is no velvet left in his voice, no carefully polished and musical lilts to his accent.

Alec turns to him, and tosses the dice again.

“Not sure why I should care, _Magnus._ ”

The name rolls on his tongue with careful intent, and Alec watches as Magnus grits his teeth, as if his given name, the one he must wear as rarely as Alec wears his own, is an offense in itself. He inhales sharply, and opens his mouth to answer, but is promptly interrupted.

“Well, I should go to sleep before your luck turns,” Lorenzo announces at their side, collecting his chips from the table. “Enjoy the rest of your evening, gentlemen.”

And with that, he is gone, walking to the elevators.

Magnus watches him go almost mournfully, and there is fury in his eyes when he looks back at Alec. He doesn’t say a word, however, and simply waits for Alec to collect his own earnings before he gives the croupier a benevolent smile that is all pretence and grabs Alec’s wrist in an iron grip, dragging him away.

The casino is still crowded despite the late hour, filled to the brim with misery and shattered dreams, and Magnus guides him through people hoping for a win or entertainment, his fingers curled tightly around Alec’s wrist. He tugs him all the way to the elevator and only lets go once they are safely inside, where he slams Alec against the wall.

“Do you have any idea what you’ve just done?” Magnus murmurs, as if there was anyone in the close space but the two of them and the palpable tension that seems to follow them even through anger and the rough reality of the game they’re playing.

The smooth, devilishly sensual mask he usually carries is gone, and although there is still anger shaking in his voice, it is a sense of desperation that prevails, pregnant enough that Alec’s brows notch into a frown.

“Seems to me like I just made you lose some money,” Alec retorts, refusing to let his anger be tamed and commandeered by the genuine distress he can read in Magnus’ amber eyes.

He feels a storm brewing as they shift over his features, searching.

“I don’t care about the fucking money,” Magnus snaps, heaving.

Alec wonders how many of his own rules Magnus will make him forget.

It’s rule number three: it’s not all about the money.

It is something Alec understood very early on, but he never laid it out as clearly as he did than when he met Clary for the first time. He remembers like it was yesterday, Isabelle introducing them, praising Clary’s skills and how she could become a reliable partner for them. It had been mere weeks later that Isabelle had managed to convince him to tell Clary the truth, and although Alec had been incredibly weary about letting a stranger in on their secret life, especially one with a cop for a father, he had still answered every question she had asked as truthfully as possible without incriminating Isabelle too much. It had felt like a test, not unlike the one he can read written all over Magnus’ open features now.

At the end, Clary had laughed and shook her head. “You’d con your own father for money, Alec.”

There was no judgment in her voice, so Alec had given her one of his expertly staged smiles for Isabelle’s sake, but kept for himself that he already had. His father had been his first mark, after he had come out of jail.

Robert possessed two traits essential to the perfect pigeon, blind trust in his ability to be superior to everyone around him and confidence that he was always the smartest person in the room. He had also painfully underestimated Alec’s resentment toward him for having to pay the price for his father’s illegal schemes.

He had divested him of a few thousands dollars, but the actual prospect of money had played very little part in Alec’s motivations.

And although he is willing to believe Magnus’ are similar, there is still something that rubs him the wrong way, and irremediable anger courses through his veins.

So he shoves Magnus away and pushes off the wall to tower over him, brows notched in irritation.

“You certainly seemed to care when you stole from me,” Alec fires back.

Magnus chuckles, cold and derisive, and this should not come out as elegantly as it does. It makes the annoyance and anger burning through Alec’s veins surge up again.

“I stole something you had already stolen,” Magnus retorts, with a deeply unimpressed look. “So maybe get off your high horse, _Oliver_.” He purses his lips, as if in deep thought, before glancing back at Alec, a smirk curving at the corner of his mouth that is blatantly lacking humor. “Or is it Ethan today? Maybe Axel or Daniel?”

Alec’s jaw flexes as he takes a step closer, eyes narrowing on Magnus. “Really? This is where you wanna go, _Mal_?” 

Magnus shrugs, in such an offhanded manner Alec knows he is doing it on purpose. “I told you, you shouldn’t play the game if you don’t know the first rules.”

“I have my own rules,” Alec snarls, voice dropping to a low, derisive drawl he knows will make Magnus’ skin crawl just as effectively as his own. “One of them includes not selling myself to immoral assholes like Aldertree, so I think I like my rules better than yours.”

Anger flares in Magnus’ eyes, and Alec knows he hit a chord. There is something else in his gaze, something raw and undecipherable for Alec’s untrained eyes to Magnus’ many nuances, but it is drowned by the tempest wrangling every other emotion into submission.

Magnus’ lips part gingerly, and then close, as if anger churns his words too much for them to be uttered out loud. When he speaks, it is in a clipped but dreadfully placid tone.

“I didn’t sell myself to Aldertree. I didn’t do it for the money.”

“Then why did you do it?” Alec asks, and his eyes on Magnus are steady, warning him that what he wants from him is probably something he isn’t willing to give away, something that goes far beyond seductive smiles and wandering fingers: the truth.

Magnus blinks, and suddenly it is as if he has been snatched away from Alec, away even from this hellhole of a place, surrounded instead by the turmoil raging through his mind, plain to witness now that Alec is paying attention beyond Magnus’ many distracting features.

It is a hard thing to ask for, Alec knows. They are not friends. They don’t know anything about one another but for what little information they have gathered in distinctly illegal ways.

But they praised each other on their ability to chase boredom away, when they first met under the dim lights of a hotel bar and the pretence of being people they are not. It had been one of the very few truths they told each other that night; another being that the chemistry flowing between them could not be staged or fabricated –it was there, innate and madly electrifying.

Alec is bored of the lies, bored of wearing names that he feels he owns more than the one he was given, bored of falling asleep to amber eyes that deceived him into thinking he could be anything more than what he’s made himself become.

Genes loaded the gun, but Alec pulled the trigger himself.

And he just wants, for once in his life, the simple and absolute truth.

“I did it for intel,” Magnus says, his shoulders slouching a little with defeat.

Alec’s heart skips a beat, but he doesn’t let it show on his features.

He lifts an eyebrow, carefully neutral. “Are you really a cop?”

Magnus snorts, shaking his head. “I’m a… freelancer,” he says elusively.

“Cut the bullshit, Magnus,” Alec growls, just as the doors to the elevator open on the twelfth floor.

A young woman is standing on the threshold, looking between the two of them like they are a quarreling couple trying to put her in the middle of their feud. After a moment of hesitation, she steps in, and Alec pulls himself to his full height, letting his hand drop at his side. She presses the button for the ground floor, and startles when they both start moving up again.

Magnus steps out as soon as the doors open again on the seventeenth floor, storming into the corridor, and Alec gives the woman a small smile before following after him with wide strides to catch up, hands tucked in his pockets.

Magnus’ hotel room is saturated with his unique fragrance, an elegant mix of citrus and something else Alec can’t identify. He is powerless to avoid it tangling through his senses, and although it fails to cut through the tension in the room, it still provides an ephemeral distraction. Magnus’ bed is facing the window, the immensity of Las Vegas spreading beneath their feet, blinding lights looking almost trivial from up there.

On the other side of the room sits a brown leather couch. Papers are scattered on the coffee table in front of it, photos and files and lists of names either crossed out or underlined in red. It is oddly familiar to what Alec’s own hotel rooms have looked like countless times; only Isabelle is missing, lounging on the couch and raiding the minibar.

The flashing thought of his sister brings Alec back to his current situation, and he steps further into the room to face Magnus.

“So, how does you being a freelancer end up with seducing me and leaving me tied up to a bed?” he asks, sarcasm heavy in his tone.

Magnus rolls his eyes, his fingers flickering in the air in a dismissive gesture. “Please,” he says, the ghost of a smirk dancing at the corner of his lips. “I didn’t _seduce_ you. I seem to recall you weren’t exactly hating it.” He pauses, licks his lips and lets his eyes graze over Alec. An unbridled shiver runs up Alec’s spine. “Or was it actually a gun in your pocket?”

Alec’s jaw clenches. “You’re fucking irritating.”

Defiance flashes in Magnus’ ambers. “And you’re fucking arrogant.”

A moment passes while they stare at each other in silence. Magnus’ gaze is open and yet impossible to read, and still all resistance flees, burned away by the heat of the distant memory of a touch, of fingers brushing and exploring the planes of his body. Alec’s body quivers with a sheer, frightening will to ravage, to abandon himself to this overwhelming storm raging through his chest.

Why does it even matter if Magnus stole a fucking watch? Why does he even care why he did it at all?

What matters is the how. What matters is the mistakes he made that led them both here, unable to admit defeat, unwilling to put an end to this senseless hunt.

But the rich scent of Magnus wafts through Alec’s senses, more intoxicating than the game ever was, and there he stands, trapped with the strength of this inexplicable magnetic pull.

The moment passes, and the mirrored want in Magnus’ eyes is washed away when he smiles, shaking his head. And for a reason he won’t be able to explain to Izzy later, Alec finds himself smiling too, honestly. Effortlessly.

And then Magnus is blinking, and Alec remembers who he is, why he is here, why there shouldn’t be truth woven within the smiles they allow each other. He turns away from Alec to walk to the minibar, and his body is riddled with tension.

Alec takes a step back –for whose sake, he isn’t sure. His eyes skip to the window, to the city still awake despite the late hour, but fail to settle on a distraction strong enough to tether him back to anything other than Magnus’ ubiquity over his mind.

Finally, his eyes fall on the coffee table he barely paid attention to earlier, and he squints.

In one of the pictures, Alec recognizes Lorenzo Rey, a post-it with the word ‘bribe?’ next to his face. Next to that picture lays a sheet of paper, the word ‘confidential’ stamped over the title. _Autopsy report._ Frowning, Alec picks it up and his stomach lurches at the name written at the very top of it. Office of Chief Medical Examiner of the City of New York. This is the department Victor Aldertree is currently the head of, although this report is dated from over twenty years ago.

Cause of death: suicide.

He sinks into the couch, and his brain barely registers Magnus’ movements anymore, too focused on the mountain of research laid out before his eyes. The hole left by the autopsy report reveals a newspaper article underneath, the page turned a rough shade of yellowish brown with time passing.

_Police investigate death of woman found in her apartment from an apparent murder, 7 year-old son only witness._

Alec looks up at Magnus as he walks back over to him, handing over a glass of whiskey.

“I’m afraid there’s no vermouth for a Negroni.”

There is light teasing in his voice, a smile in his words, but none of it in his eyes.

“What is this?” Alec asks, although he takes the glass nonetheless.

Magnus picks up the newspaper article, and a flash of anguish crosses his features, something deeper than Alec can surmise from its fleetingness.

“None of your concern, darling.”

The tone is light, tempting, more Malcolm than Magnus.

Alec doesn’t even bother swatting away Magnus’ dismissal.

His gaze skips over the table, and lands on another familiar face. He remembers seeing it while going through Izzy’s file about Azazel White.

Asmodeus Effendi looks perpetually bored by the world surrounding him, but his eyes are so impassive and cold they manage to make Alec feel uncomfortable just looking at them through a photograph.

He hadn’t paid much attention to their common features before, but now that Alec is standing next to Magnus, the evidence of their parentage is blatant. Their eyes have the same peculiar shade of brown, although there is none of Magnus’ warmth in Asmodeus’ stern gaze. They share the same sharp jawline and thin lips, but they are tempting only on Magnus’ handsome features, adding to a charm he seems to possess and exude naturally.

The main difference, however, comes from the deep-rooted sadness that Magnus has laid bare for Alec to witness. His body is strong, his gaze resolute, his hands elegant but dangerous, and Alec wonders whether the weapon Magnus has made of himself is a consequence or a factor of Asmodeus’ doing. Now that he knows where to look, it is plain to see either way.

And Alec remembers this article, the one that had Ragnor Fell fired from his long-standing reporter job. The one that claimed that Asmodeus had killed his mistress and used his limitless resources to bride the press and the police into silence.

It never said anything about a boy, but the thread is already unfolding in his mind.

“You’re the boy from the article, aren’t you?” he asks, although he already knows the answer.

Magnus takes a sip of his whiskey, turning away to face the window. The night is dark, covering them in a coat of silence that feels heavier than it did just moments ago.

He doesn’t reply, but it is an answer in itself.

“I’m not doing this for the money,” he says instead, as if it still bears repeating even now, even when Alec put the pieces back together and sees the strong and intelligent man this traumatized boy has grown into. “I’m doing this for her.”

Alec picks up the picture; Asmodeus’ stern eyes seem to be staring right into his soul.

“He’s your father,” he says, more of a statement than a question.

Again, Magnus doesn’t reply, words inconsequential in the face of such heartache. Alec fails to fathom how they could ever do justice to the pain that must have plagued the child barely mentioned in the article and followed the man into a quest which Alec is barely scraping the surface of.

“He killed her,” Magnus says, simply. “I’m building a case to prove it.”

Silence reigns for a moment, untouchable.

Alec doesn’t dare to speak, the evidence of a reality he hadn’t imagined laid bare in documents obtained through trickery, sweat and tears. He has been too busy planning a revenge that now seems trivial to notice. To care.

He understands too well what it is, to have a father that doesn’t hold his children’s wellbeing as a cardinal rule.

Robert Lightwood is, by all available standards, not a good person.

Alec was only twenty when his father’s company was accused of laundering money. He found out too late it was his name his father had unscrupulously used to achieve his misdeeds. There hadn’t been much chance for Alec to defend himself, and he was too young and too broke after having left the family home with a door slammed behind him to know how to preserve the feeble notion of freedom he had thought guaranteed.

Unfortunately for Robert, Alec spent a little under a year behind bars carefully constructing a plan to get back to him.

On the brink of ruin and having tasted the bitter taste of his own medicine, and after a very public divorce with Alec’s mother, Robert had cursed his entire existence but hadn’t been able to act on his threats of ruining Alec’s life, for Alec had already implemented his first rule by then.

You can’t con an honest man.

You can, however, make him suffer and pay.

It was a meager consolation, but Alec never looked back on the day he walked away from his father with the promise to ruin him in both fortune and reputation if he ever were to get close to his mother, his siblings or himself ever again.

This is the reality he lives with, the bitter satisfaction he holds onto, the catalyst for every game conquered.

It’s a great incentive, vengeance. Alec knows better than most.

Alec found Magnus Bane in Las Vegas because of its drive, because of its familiar clutch around his heart.

He is good at this, at taking and taking and _taking_ , because after a life of deception and privation, he feels as if he’s entitled to it.

It doesn’t feel like such a victory, now.

The bitter aftertaste in his mouth is a testament of its own.

“I think Lorenzo Rey was the reporter who was paid off to stifle the whole story with the press at the time,” Magnus says, looming. “I needed to get to him tonight.”

In the grand scheme of things, confronted with the pain smothered by Magnus’ erected walls and the idea of a happy childhood ruined at the hand of a single man, Alec’s ego doesn’t mean much.

In fact, it doesn’t mean anything at all.

Alec goes to Magnus, crossing the distance between them until he is close enough that he would just have to lift a hand to touch him, to feel the warmth of his skin that feels like a distant memory now, to feed the foolish hope that he could assuage the storm and replace it with the comfort of a victory that seems out of reach now, that bears the face of a child who learned to wear a million names so he could escape his own.

“Talk to me,” he hears himself saying, barely recognizing his voice as his own. And yet it is, and right then, Alec feels like he is wearing his own name more than he has in years. It is more of an open request than a demand, and his breath drifting over the skin of Magnus’ nape is, he hopes, an omen to his intentions. “Maybe I can help.”

Magnus’ skin touches his own; Alec’s pulse races.

Magnus smiles, but his eyes are cold and calculating as they brush over Alec’s features.

“Fuck off.”

**Author's Note:**

> plot twist: maybe they're not assholes after all. no one saw it coming.
> 
> I'm on twitter [@_L_ecrit](https://twitter.com/_L_ecrit) if that's your thing.
> 
> Thanks to my boo [Jackie](https://twitter.com/jwrites_) for beta'ing and putting up with my need for validation. Love you.


End file.
